


Symbol of Hope: A Meta on the Untold Story of the Voltron Coalition

by violethowler



Series: VLD Meta Analysis [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Analysis, Essay, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 11:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18342428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violethowler/pseuds/violethowler
Summary: There's a reason the Coalition wasn't in focus as much after Season 4.





	Symbol of Hope: A Meta on the Untold Story of the Voltron Coalition

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this on Tumblr a few weeks after Season 7 came out, but I ended up deleting the post a little before Season 8.

Back when Season 7 came out, and even some time before that, there was a lot of criticism of how the Coalition had faded into the background after the focus on building it up in Seasons 3 and 4. After Season 7 came out the criticism shifted to how we find out about the coalition being hunted by the Druids after Voltron disappeared, only for everyone to show up mostly fine after the liberation of Earth. For some reason though, none of this every really felt like that huge of an issue to me,

At of the end of season 4, the Voltron Coalition had taken control of one third of the Galra Empire’s territory. That’s a lot of planets, and I highly doubt that Zarkon’s commanders just sat by and let the rebels’ victory go uncontested. Particularly when Lotor took the throne and officially allies with Voltron, it’s very easy to imagine that the reason we don’t see as much of the Coalition in seasons 5-6 is because they’re fighting off reprisals from Galra generals looking to reconquer the newly freed territory. We don’t see further attempts to liberate conquered planets because the Coalition can’t do that while they’re still scrambling to hold onto the planets they just liberated at the end of Season 4. And for all that fans speculated about where Matt had gone whenever he wasn’t in the castle, the implication I always got, and which his message to his dad in Season 7 seemed to confirm, was that after his dad returned to Earth he headed back into the front lines.    

As for the coalition recovering off-screen in Season 7, I’m reminded of two quotes from the first episode of Season 3. When the Puigian leader asks what he’s supposed to tell his people about the Black Paladin being missing and therefore the team being unable to form Voltron, Keith snaps “tell them to stand up and fight for themselves”. In effect, he’s telling them to get up and contribute to the fight against the empire instead of waiting around for Voltron to solve their problems for them. Before the meeting, Coran tells Allura that her father believed that “we can’t always put the fate of the universe in the hands of a giant weapon”. We see a recurring thread in that episode that for all its power and its status as a symbol of hope, Voltron shouldn’t be the go-to solution for every problem.  

Voltron absolutely has value as a symbol to rally behind, as Allura points out when she talks about it being “a symbol of freedom and hope” in Season 4. But Keith and Coran are also right that the burgeoning alliance should not be so reliant on a symbol that they cannot function without it. And as Keith’s dilemma in Code of Honor made clear, the Paladins cannot be everywhere at once. They needed to prioritize where and when to direct their personal attention. Hence why the team was focused on winning hearts and minds in Season 4 while Keith (aside from the _other_ reasons he left) feels his skills are better served on Blade missions gathering hard intel on the empire’s movements than on air shows and propaganda.  

In Seasons 3 and 4, the team’s priority was building the Coalition and putting together the alliance. Once the coalition had reached enough size and strength that it could defend itself alone, the paladins shifted their focus towards long-term concerns like how to get the Galra Empire to lay down their arms and make peace. The Coalition’s work of securing their new territory against imperial reprisals was still important, but like Keith said in Season 3, they needed to learn how to stand on their own without Voltron if they wanted to survive in the long term.

That’s why the Coalition recovering from its near destruction offscreen didn’t bother me that much. Because it showed that despite the initial setback, the rebellion took that message to heart and managed to recover on their own. Once they realized that Voltron was MIA and was unlikely to swoop in and save the day, they got back up and rebuilt. And despite my issues with Season 8, I liked how the Voltron Coalition was renamed the Galactic Coalition by the end of the season, because it felt like an acknowledgement that despite its importance as a symbol, the Coalition was bigger than just Voltron.


End file.
